Word: imam
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...journey to the shrine of Imam Ali was a harrowing trip that would take me and photographer Thorne Anderson through the American cordon around Najaf, crossing a stretch of burned out no-man's land and then navigating the al Mahdi Army lines. It took roughly two and a half hours to go from the southeastern edge of the city, which forced us to cross open ground where snipers fired down on us from their perches in shattered buildings...
...eight days, the warnings of a decisive military showdown echoed across Najaf as fighting raged between U.S. forces and Shi'ite militiamen for control of the holy city. The Shi'ites' truculent leader, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, vowed not to leave his bunker in the sect's sacred Imam Ali shrine "until the last drop of my blood has been spilled." The U.S. Marine colonel commanding American and Iraqi-government troops battling the stubborn gunmen of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army proclaimed his men were ready "to finish this fight that the Muqtada militia started." Iyad Allawi, the Prime Minister...
...establish popular legitimacy or law and order amid the chaos of post-Saddam Iraq. Allawi had set himself up as a tough guy ready to impose draconian measures to quell the country's relentless violence. Yet taking the fight all the way to the golden-domed Imam Ali shrine, where al-Sadr's men were dug in, could spark uncontrollable rage among the country's majority Shi'ite population. Unrest had quickly spread across the Shi'ite south and into Baghdad's teeming Sadr City slums. Washington sensed that a critical turning point had been reached: a widening conflagration would...
...Najaf--it's outside Najaf, it's not inside the city. There are Iraqi troops there, police. Let me put the record right. I spoke [Aug. 10] to the commander of the multinational troops, General [George] Casey, and he has no intention whatsoever of sending American troops into the Imam Ali shrine...
...there is no need nor request. No multinational forces have requested to go to the Imam Ali shrine. I can assure you of this very clearly...